Howdy all
Brand new member here, and this is my first post.
I just picked up one of the new Bachmann Spectrum Baldwin HO 4-6-0’s at a train show on Sunday. I’ve been out of the hobby for a couple of years, so I’m not up on all the new developments. I asked the dealer how long this Locomotive had been on the market, since it was the first time I’d seen one. He said he thought for just a few months.
I one of what they’re calling the ‘high boiler’ version, which is the one with the larger drive wheels. What first caught my eye was one of the ‘low boiler’ versions lettered for Maryland & Pacific. It brought back instant nostalgia as I remembered the series of articles MR ran when I was a kid about the Ma & Pa. I sure loved that series.
Anyway, I bought the high boilered version, because I thought it would be a little more useful for small locals and mixed freights on my pike. I’m set in the fifties, but I can always fudge a reason for a nice new steamer. I was lucky and he had a painted but unlettered one. I took it home and cleaned off my track a bit and ran it around the layout for a while.
This isn’t my first adventure with the Spectrum line and it performed just as well as the 3 2-8-0’s that I have. It is quite a bit smaller than I realized, and suffered as all little engines do on dirty track. But that’s not the engines’s fault. It is beautifully detailed, and performed quite well, although a bit noisy. I have some pretty steep grades so it was only able to pull about 6 cars around the layout.
So. I’m interested in any prototype information available on this Loco. A quick scan of some recent MR’s did not turn up any product reviews. There was no prototype information at all that came with the Loco. I’d be very interested to know anything at all about the prototype, other than the obvious fact that it was made by Baldwin. I’m guessing by the size and style of the engine that the prototype was built sometime in the 1890’s.
A